So I still haven’t found the perfect lasagna recipe yet but I’m getting closer. I finally realized that maybe rosemary isn’t the best seasoning for the meat. (better for Sheppard’s Pie)
For this version of lasagna I decided to layer the noodles with a combination of Alfredo sauce, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms and spinach. For the top I decided to put a layer of ricotta and mozzarella.
Overall not bad but need to work on seasoning the meat!
Just wrap it in bacon! Its just a suggestion 
by Rachael Ray
IN SPANISH, margarita means “daisy.” But in North America, I believe the translation is closer to “super fun time.”
Totally fine to think of the cocktail that way, but let’s put down the ready-made, Day-Glo sour mix, step away from the margarita machine and take the drink seriously for just a moment. The margarita may conjure images of spring break in Cancún and fishbowl glasses with cactuses as stems or yardstick-long containers filled with boozy slush. But the cocktail is so much more than that.
It doesn’t take much to elevate the margarita to the top of the drink canon. Despite its unfortunate reputation as the Lindsay Lohan of the drink world, it deserves to rub elbows with the likes of the Manhattan and the martini. A properly made margarita is like Emma Stone—fun-loving but, deep down, classy and smart.
Like any other drink, it is only as good as its worst ingredient. Fortunately, the basic margarita only has three: tequila, triple sec and lime juice. Choose a spirit made of 100% agave, stock your bar with a solid orange-flavored liqueur, squeeze fresh lime juice—think of how strong your forearms will get!—and nail the proportions and you’ll have a wonderfully balanced sweet, tangy, slightly earthy (that’s the 100% agave) drink to sip this Cinco de Mayo and throughout the summer.
“Where’s the strawberry?” you might be asking. “Can I get extra salt on my rim?” Purists scoff at alterations to the margarita—yes, the harshest sticklers say no salt—but the add-ons are part of the drink’s fun factor. “Margaritas are like burgers,” said Bobby Heugel, owner of Anvil Bar & Refuge in Houston, one of Texas’s craft cocktail meccas. “There can be good ones on the high, gourmet level, and good ones at the low, fast-food-like level, too.” At Anvil there are several versions of the margarita, a basic one (1¾ ounces tequila, ¾ ounce Combier, ¾ ounce lime juice, 1 bar spoon agave) and the special Anvil margarita, which is a blend of different agave-based spirits as well as orange bitters. (Mr. Heugel keeps the exact recipe a secret.)
In the margarita experimentation game, as long as you’re using quality ingredients, you’re winning. That means no margarita mixes. Variations can be as subtle as swapping one citrus out for another, choosing an aged tequila over a blanco or, as in Tommy’s margarita from Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, ditching triple sec in favor of agave syrup. On the more elaborate end of the spectrum, margaritas can be imbued with fruit purées, rimmed with chipotle-spiced salt or incorporate spirits outside of standard margarita territory, such as Campari or green Chartreuse.
But the key ingredient, really, is fun. We’ve gathered some of the best margarita recipes from around the country to help you prepare for the warm months ahead. And if you need an excuse to pull this article out in the fall, Sept. 16 is Mexican Independence Day. So here’s to the margarita…and to super-fun times.
A bright and fresh margarita variation for those who like things a little more tangy. The Campari and grapefruit juice round things out with just the right amount of bitterness.
1½ ounces blanco tequila
¾ ounce fresh lime juice
¾ ounce simple syrup
½ ounce fresh grapefruit juice
¼ ounce Campari
Orange twist
Shake liquid ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
From Katie Stipe of Flatiron Lounge, New York
It is a little-known fact that green Chartreuse partners well with tequila. The French liqueur adds a beautiful je ne sais quoi to this cocktail while the egg white gives it a sophisticated, airy body. A grown-up’s margarita.
2 ounces blanco tequila
1 ounce fresh lime juice
½ ounce green Chartreuse
¼ ounce agave nectar
½ ounce egg white
Shake ingredients without ice to emulsify egg white. Add ice, shake again and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Salted rim and lime garnish are optional.
From Giuseppe González of Golden Cadillac, New York
Ask five bartenders for their classic margarita and you’ll get five slightly different recipes. That’s OK. The margarita aims to please. Consider this recipe a base line. Too sweet? Use ¼ ounce more lime. Too tart? Add agave, ¼ ounce more orange liqueur or both. Too boozy? Delete a ¼ ounce tequila. (We find serving it on the rocks covers up slight imperfections.) A request: When you make a slam-dunk margarita, try it with no ice and no salt. You’ll make the cocktail gods happy.
2 ounces tequila
¾ ounce orange liqueur
¾ ounce fresh lime juice
¼ ounce agave nectar (optional)
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass or over ice into a rocks glass. Salted rim and lime garnish are optional.
Julio Bermejo, the state of Jalisco, Mexico’s “Ambassador of tequila to the United States” invented this drink 15, 16 or 17 years ago—”Things get blurry over the years,” he said—because he didn’t feel like saccharine triple sec was doing tequila justice. Instead, he swapped it for agave nectar to create a classic in its own right. Once you try this seminal margarita variation, you may never pick up another bottle of triple sec again.
2 ounces 100% agave tequila
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce agave nectar syrup (1 part agave nectar to 1 part water)
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
From Julio Bermejo of Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, San Francisco
This elegant margarita variation uses dessert wine (a Lacrima or Sauternes is recommended) instead of triple sec to give the drink a surprising, complex sweetness. The black lava salt is a nice theatrical touch and a nod to the volcanic soil where agave plants commonly flourish.
Black lava salt
2 ounces tequila
¾ ounce dessert wine
1 ounce fresh lime juice
½ ounce agave nectar
Lime peel
Rim glass with black lava salt. Shake liquid ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lime peel.
From Brian Means of Fifth Floor, San Francisco
A ‘rita that’s fresh and light enough to have instead of a bloody mary or a mimosa with breakfast.
1½ ounces blanco tequila
¾ ounce Cointreau
1 ounce mango nectar
1 ounce fresh tangerine juice
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
¼ ounce ginger juice
Tangerine wedge
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with a tangerine wedge.
From Nate Wales of La Condesa, Austin, Texas
El Camino
3628 West 32nd Avenue
Denver, CO 80211
(720) 889-7946
WEBSITE
Great Mexican food in the Highlands! Above are shrimp tacos which were almost as good as there fish tacos. Also stay for dessert there sopapillas are AMAZING!!
Dulce de Leche Cheerios
YOU ARE NEVER TO OLD FOR CHEERIOS! Especially when there are so many great new flavors as seen above and below.
Of course I think the peanut butter flavor is way better then the other flavors but then again that’s a matter of personal preference.
I found some interesting recipe that use Cheerios as an ingredients. (scroll down)
Multi Grain Cheerios ® Peanut Butter
PB & J Squares – source
4600 Sleepytime Drive
Boulder, CO 80301
(303) 530-5300
Sure there’s peppermint in the peppermint room but no photos!
If you love celestial seasonings tea as much as I do then you should do the tour! The best part is you can sample as many teas as you like and it’s free.
I loved sampling all the teas hot and cold!
My new favorite tea is Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride its like drinking a cookie! My advice is to use a smaller mug to enhance the taste.
Another Dave creation off of the grill!
Melt the butter in a skillet, saute garlic, then add chopped cilantro. Saute cilantro for about a minute, remove from heat, and stir in juice of 1 lime and dry seasonings. Cover both sides of fillets with sauce, place on preheated medium-hot grill, cook 4-6 mins per side while basting with remaining butter sauce.
Serve fish with lime wedges and choice of hot sauce
Wonder if any restaurants in Denver do this?
By Jonathan Gold
Los Angeles Times Restaurant Critic
When Nguyen Tran emailed to tell me about an extravaganza he was setting up at an acquaintance’s house, a special herb dinner in which each of the many courses would involve fresh marijuana, I did not necessarily beg to be included in the feast. The first time I met Tran, on a social-media panel somewhere, he happened to be wearing a banana suit, and he has been known to show up to food events dressed as a tauntaun from “The Empire Strikes Back.” I like his Starry Kitchen, a pan-Asian lunchroom in a downtown office-building food court, and I admire the running pop-up restaurant he mounts with chef Laurent Quenioux. But the notion of an “herb” dinner wasn’t especially my thing. The last time I had sampled this particular herb was many years ago, in the course of reporting a story on Snoop Dogg and his 15 pit bulls, and its culinary uses were not apparent even back then.
But secret restaurants are increasing in importance in Los Angeles, floating dining rooms where you realistically won’t land a table unless you know somebody involved. Transgressive eating has become voguish — I recently endured a dish of French fries greased with whipped pigs’ brains — as has obsessive concentration on a single ingredient, such as the all-soba dinners put on by Common Grains.
The chef in charge
And Quenioux, a Frenchman who has been cooking in Los Angeles since he replaced Joachim Splichal at the long-gone Seventh Street Bistro in the 1980s, is at the center of transgressive-food chic. The menus at his late Bistro K and Bistro LQ were thick with exotica such as duck hearts, jellied blood and Mexican ant eggs, and he often presided over long dinners built around black truffles or shot game. His pop-up at Starry Kitchen has been a good one. If you were going to trust any chef with a nine-course dinner built around a marginal herb, he would be the guy.
Of course, there are differences between attending a suckling-pig feast and attending a dinner devoted to Bob Marley’s favorite herb. You don’t just reserve a table. You fill out a questionnaire designed to weed out unsympathetic clients, so that it sometimes feels as if you are applying to a small liberal arts college rather than arranging to have dinner. My answer to the question “If you could fly/resurrect/bring
any person you could to this dinner, who would you bring and why?”
was 19th century gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, but I wondered whether I should have named somebody more contemporary, like Jeremy Lin or Waka Flocka Flame.
If your application is accepted, the emailed response includes a password to a protected website, a list of suggested wine pairings from Domaine L.A., a warning to bring neither substance nor paraphernalia to the event, and a set of instructions about a set of instructions to come. As relaxed as the laws may be in California, Tran is taking no chances.
So on April Fools’ Day, I found myself skulking around an Encino parking lot, clutching a bottle of chilled Grüner Veltliner and looking for an unmarked van with a sign saying, “Grammar Rodeo,” an obscure “Simpsons” reference, on its dashboard.
Five minutes into the hills, along an intentionally circuitous route, and we were there: a sleekly anonymous midcentury house, its driveway crowded with luxury sedans, its kitchen crowded with aproned cooks as if it were a high-end charity event. A bartender handed me a moonshine cocktail glazed with ganja-infused sesame oil, and I managed to turn away before he saw me wince at the strong whiff of bong water.
Tran had emailed a couple of times about the details of the event, how the point of the dinner was less about intoxication than about discovering how the flavors of the herb played with more traditional Chinese herbs; how the amounts had been adjusted to render the effects of the meal essentially suggestive rather than psychotropic. Tran had said that Quenioux would mostly be using the fresh herb and that he used less than an ounce to prepare nine dishes apiece for 30 people. The kitchen was sober as an operating room; the diners sat at long tables set up in the living room.
Who was there? The usual, I guess, what the media buyers call “young creatives.” The people at my table included a filmmaker, a designer whose food blog I’d read for years, a restaurant consultant, and High Times columnist Elise McDonough, who had written “The Official High Times Cannabis Cookbook.”
Don’t eat the garnish
Nobody quite knew what to expect, which is why people were prodding the modish dish of cured duck breast, raw yellowtail and compressed watermelon, trying to figure out whether the cannabis was involved in the melon’s marinade or in the garnish of chopped herbs, and where it might be hiding in an arrangement of papaya, roasted partridge, braised wild boar and baby ginseng.
Quenioux is a fine chef, but you would not be interested, I would imagine, in the Chinese-style composition of spareribs and pork belly cooked with angelica root and goji berries — you can find that in Monterey Park. Nor would you be interested in the galantine of black-skinned silky chicken with pink grapefruit segments if not for the garnish of fresh cannabis leaf. “Don’t eat that,” someone said. “Fresh leaves sometimes have tiny needles sticking out of them, like stinging nettles.”
Cannabis did not seem to be among the garnishes on the plate of spot prawns, whose heads were tempura-fried while still attached to the steamed bodies; it appeared as a flavor really only as part of an epazote puree dotting a shallow bowl of rice porridge with nettles and monkfish. Cannabis-infused butter seeped from an onion-bacon-potato tart served with roast culotte. Dinner finished with a jigger of panna cotta tinged with the burnt-citrus notes of the Chinese herb osmanthus, served with a cannabis-coconut oil “snow.”
“It’s funny,” said the High Times writer. “You hardly tasted the cannabis at all. Usually the problem is the opposite — it has such a strong, sweet-nutty flavor that the trick is covering it up, often with chocolate. Either he’s a really good chef, or I’m missing something.”
Unbuzzed but smiling, unarrested but guilty, we all moved toward the shuttles that would take us back down the hill.
jonathan.gold@latimes.com
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
By SREEJA VN: Subscribe to Sreeja’s RSS feed
With April 17 being the tax day deadline for 2012, several big companies and retail outlets are bombarding Facebook and social networking sites with special deals and freebies on everything from curly fries to beverages and much more.
The customers can get special deals and freebies by bringing printed coupons, by liking the product pages, sharing the deals from the participating shops in fixed times.
Here are some of the best tax day deals:
Sonic: Tacoma, WA 98406: Sonic will treat you with half price drinks and slush’s at half prices April 17.
Arby’s: On the tax day Arby’s offers free curly fries at the participating Arby’s chains and also a chance to win a $5000 tax relief. For details visit Arby’s Facebook page.
Bruegger’s Bagels : You get a coupon valid for a Big Bagel Bundle-a baker’s dozen bagels and two tubs of cream cheese-for $10.40 when you “like” Bagel and breakfast chain. Offer is valid from April 14 to April 17.
Seattle’s Best Coffee: Like Seattle’s Best Coffee on Facebook and you are going to get a free sample of Level System coffee. Offer is valid on April 17 for first 100,000 purchases.
P.F. Chang: P.F. Chang’s will reward guests nationwide with a 15 percent discount on April 17. The special one-day deal encourages P.F. Chang’s diners across the country to celebrate the end of tax season with extra savings.
AMC theatres: Print this coupon to get small popcorn free at the AMC theatres. Offer is valid from April 13 to April 15.
Hooters: The Hooters restaurant is giving an irresistible offer on tax day. Customers get 20 boneless wings for $9.99, dine-in on April 17 only.
Papa John’s: The pizza chain is offering a discount to the online purchases on the tax day. Enter “1040″ in promotional code box while ordering online and get a large four topping pizza for $10.40.
Panda Express: Like Panda Express on their Facebook page and get a free single serving of Shanghai Angus Steak at all their participating restaurants.
Marble Slab Creamery and MaggieMoo’s Ice Cream will sweeten the sting on the Tax Day, by offering customers a free scoop of their delicious new yogurt flavors from 4:00pm – 7:00pm at participating US locations nationwide.
HydroMassage chains will be helping the citizens to eliminate stress on Tax day, by giving out free HydroMassages on April 16 and 20. Get the coupon and information here.
To get a complete list of shops that offer Tax Day deals click here.
To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: s.vn@ibtimes.com
To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.com
